Massive sinkhole swallows road, forces families to evacuate weeks before Christmas

MERTHYR TYDFIL, Wales – Families in the Welsh neighborhood of Nant Morlais, Pant, are beginning to return home after the sudden appearance of a sinkhole forced them to evacuate weeks before Christmas.

The sinkhole was initially reported on the night of Nov. 30, according to Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council Councillor Brent Carter. Engineers were sent to assess the situation and found a small hole that appeared in the road.

Over the next 10 days, the hole grew to be over 30 feet wide and nearly 40 feet deep, as seen in the video above. It’s a hole large enough to swallow some London double-decker buses.

Officials believe the sinkhole began to form nearly a week before it was reported. They said floods from Storm Bert, which swept through the area that weekend with torrential rains of 6 inches or more, triggered a landslide on the mountain behind town.

It washed stone and debris down into the culvert to create a cavern beneath the street in Nant Morlais.

“At around 6am on Sunday 24th November, three separate households from Nant Morlais heard rumblings and bangs, which at the time they thought was thunder,” Merthyr Tydfil officials said. “However, from our understanding, that is when the collapse happened.”

Over the following week, erosion on the roof of the cavern progressed enough for the roof of the cavern to breach the surface.

Carter said the entire city was evacuated upon the discovery of the sinkhole for the safety of the residents.

He noted that the situation was exacerbated by Storm Darragh, which drenched the area only two weeks after Bert.

Engineers built a dam and installed pumps to divert the flow of water away from the sinkhole to try to prevent it from growing, according to officials. They’re working on filling the sinkhole with stone.

Utilities have also been restored to some of the area, allowing some residents to return to their homes with the hope that the remaining displaced residents will be able to follow suit at some point next week.